Alphabet's Google has modified its European spam policy to address concerns from EU regulators that could have led to an antitrust fine. The changes, effective August 30, will prevent the policy from demoting news media and other publishers' websites in search results within the European Economic Area.
Google's policy change aims to avoid significant fines under the EU's Digital Markets Act, highlighting the increasing regulatory pressure on Big Tech companies operating within the bloc.
Alphabet's Google announced on Friday that it has altered its spam policy within Europe to preemptively address concerns raised by European Union regulators that could have resulted in an antitrust fine.
The U.S. tech giant faced scrutiny from EU regulators following complaints from publishers regarding its site reputation abuse policy. This policy targets the practice of publishing third-party content on a website to manipulate search rankings by leveraging the host site's ranking signals, a technique commonly known as parasite SEO.
The EU had indicated that its monitoring suggested Google's spam policy was demoting news media and other publishers' websites and content in Google search results when those sites featured content from commercial partners.
Google stated that as of August 30, any manual actions taken to demote sites under this policy would not be applied to users within the 27 EU nations, Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein, collectively known as the European Economic Area. The company confirmed that the policy would remain unchanged outside this region.
These concerns had prompted the European Commission, acting as the EU's competition enforcer, to initiate an investigation under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), legislation designed to curb the influence of major technology companies. Violations of the DMA can lead to fines of up to 10% of a company's global annual turnover.